Like so many plots to flood the streets of Teesside with Class A drugs, this story starts in Merseyside.

High purity heroin was ferried from Liverpool to Tyneside, where it was cut and distributed to dealers on Teesside.

Kilos of the drug was seized from gang leader Andrew Bennett, which could be worth anything from £300,000 to £500,000 on the street.

Eleven people were sent to prison after detectives from Cleveland Police’s Organised Crime Unit tracked the gang for around six weeks during the summer of 2014, and it didn’t take them long to find the drugs...

‘Flash’ kingpin “had a penchant for buying blenders”

Andrew Bennett - from Stockton , but operating from Tyneside - made numerous trips between Liverpool and the North-east, some of which were witnessed by detectives tracking him.

They followed him to addresses in Tyneside, including one house in Fellgate in Jarrow, which was used to cut the drugs.

And a tell-tale sign that Bennett, along with his girlfriend and personal assistant Joanne Wilson, were dealing is the fact they kept buying one unusual item - blenders.

“They had a penchant for buying blenders, we saw them do that. They get used to break down the blocks of heroin into the powder, and then that’s mixed with whatever they’re using,” said Detective Sergeant John Fitzpatrick.

In this case, pure heroin was being mixed with caffeine and paracetemol.

Drugs seized in connection with the case

The pair also had a taste for flash cars and jewellery, items the “unemployed” pair would be unable to afford without the huge sums they were making through drugs.

When Wilson, of West Boldon, was arrested she was wearing a Rolex Daytona worth £11,000 and driving a high end Mercedes. Her and Bennett had more than £20,000 of cash in their property.

Police used ‘innovative’ surveillance techniques

Det Sgt Fitzgerald said detectives tracked Bennett and his courier Daniel Crone, who delivered the drugs to Teesside, making trips to Merseyside and to dealers in Middlesbrough and Stockton.

“Without going into too much detail, we used advanced telephone analysis - some innovative methods - but that’s difficult because if you’re involved in that sort of conspiracy then you become phone disciplined,” he said.

In most cases, drug gang leaders are careful - but in this case, Det Sgt Fitzgerald said, they simply followed Bennett and Crone, a manager at a Kwik Fit garage in Tyneside by day, before seizing drugs and dirty phones at a number of addresses.